All Our Pretty Pieces
by Echo Vanity
Summary: "there's something about possesion, being taken over so completely by someone else. there's an inescapable intimacy that nothing and no one will ever measure up to...she had felt him die inside her, felt a piece of her die with him...to love and lose a perfect monster at eleven years old, tormentor and truest love..." Ginny/Tom Riddle Jr, AU perspective of canon events.
1. Leaving

**A/N please read, I won't do this every chap: Hey, so this is a Tom Riddle/Ginny Weasley pairing...no idea where I'm going with it, but it'll be kinda an AU version of the canon from basically the first book to post epilogue. There will be a fair few warning later on but this is kind of just a prologue to see if anyone likes where I'm going with it. Multi-chapter. Italics interspersed at the bottom are intended to be Riddle's thoughts but idk. anyway cause I'm kinda iffy about this, thoughts would be reallly appreciated, especially constructive. I haven't written anything new in a while either, especially not with intended length. Mkay I'll shut up. Enjoy! **

**JKR OWNS ALL. **

**Prologue: Rust and Smoke**

_Years will pass and her hair will fade. The fiery mane will dim, loose it's copper shimmer and turn rusty and streaked with grey. Her milky skin will sag and wrinkle. Creases will permanently form around her forehead and eyes. Her smile will turn downward, and the years of unhappiness will be written on her flesh like it's the parchment it will begin to resemble._

_In her head though, as in the diary, he remains pure and perfect and untouchable. He is still 16 and not quite the monster he will become._

_He is dead but he lives on in her still blazing eyes. _

At 11 she is as uncorrupted as virgin snow.

She is pure and

sweet and

hopeful and

**innocent**.

_She is gullible and far too trusting and ignorant and hopelessly optimistic and she is _

_Afraid. She is _

_Easy._

She's the baby girl of a family who would die to protect her. She is loved and she is shielded and has never known true fear. Not yet.

_Like a lamb to the slaughter._

Her smile is untroubled and words tumble freely, gaily out of her rosebud mouth and her excitement is infectious.

_The virgin sacrifice._

And her joyous laughter sounds like birdsong.

_Turtledove in a gilded cage, but you don't know you're _

_Trapped._

There is steam and scarlet paint. There is a train whistle screeching and plump arms around her. There is a kiss made sloppy by tears and smiling eyes blurred by emotion.

There is a flurry of activity and the slamming of doors. Hauling her heavy trunk behind her, she turns and waves to her proud parents.

She's on her way.

_We're coming home._

In a tattered school back pack, shoved between a dog eared copy of Witch Weekly and a squashed package of slightly dry corned beef sandwiches, there is a plain, black, highly unremarkable diary. On the first page, in a girlish, disjointed print, is written: "_1st September-I'm finally going to Hogwarts!"_

And as the train picks up speed and the countryside blurs green and grey outside the windows, Ginny Weasley's words fade to and a masculine spidery scrawl appears on the diary's page;

_At _

_Last._


	2. Forgetting

Hogwarts is a labyrinth, all twisting halls and staircases that are never where she needs them.

Ginny Weasley is the 7th to pass through these hallowed halls in recent and her red hair and freckles attract far more attention than she would like.

All she used to want was more attention, not sloppy scraps of affection.

Now she finds she'd much prefer

_Invisibility_

To comparison.

Her brother's, so tall and boisterous and full of life and _loud _

All seem to be heroes, in one way or another.

Percy the Pompous Prefect, with his pretty Ravenclaw girlfriend Ginny's not supposed to know about.

_And so Ginny musn't break school rules, so Ginny must get good grades and Ginny must pay attention and have all the teachers love her._

Fred and George, tricksters, mischief makers, clowns; popular and showered with attention and friends to all.

_So Ginny must be funny and Ginny must be loud and Ginny must be friends with everyone and Ginny must be clever and Ginny mustn't take school work too seriously. _

And even _Ron_, shy Ron, gawky Ron, is a standard she must meet. Brave Ron, funny Ron, daft Ron, who fought a giant troll and was mean to a girl he now stares at, who fought a three-headed dog and who befriended _famous Harry Potter, _best friends with _the _Harry Potter, and helped find the Philosophers Stone, who stole their father's care to _rescue the Harry Potter, _who flew into the Whomping Willow with on the first day of school with _Harry-Boy-Who-Bloody-Lived-Potter._

_So Ginny must be brave and Ginny must do daring deeds and Ginny must have intelligent friends and Ginny must somehow make Harry Potter notice her, somehow, somehow…_

Not to mention Bill, with his ponytail and piercings, who some seventh year girls still sigh over, and Charlie with his Quidditch and his dragons, (who Oliver Wood still sighs over, when Harry's not in hearing, as the perfect seeker)

6 brothers is a lot to live up to, and Ginny has to be the best for Ginny is the girl and Ginny must also be pretty and witty and attractive to boys and have dozens of friends and fit in and stand out and Ginny is the last it all rests on Ginny's shoulders but in reality…

Ginny is sweet and Ginny is shy and Ginny has been invisible for the past 11 years of her life, except when her mother grew bored of dealing with mud and unruly curls and would beckon Ginny to her knee and they would drink tea while her mother played with her long, smooth hair and sighed.

And Ginny isn't stupid but the homework here is hard and she's sure she reads disappointment in her teacher's eyes because she isn't living up to the Weasley standard.

And Ginny's robes had to be bought three sizes too big so that they would last out her school years and they're already tattered and school shoes are fourth-hand and the scuffs couldn't be removed. Her classmates look at her in their childish mix of pity and scorn. They have new clothes, new books, new wands. She hides in her hair and doesn't speak.

But at night she scribbles furiously in her diary, the one she found with her school books (a secret present she assumed, from her mother, who was always one to encourage girly things like diary-keeping and flower-braiding and baking, and disinclined to encourage tree climbing, Quidditch and dirt for her only daughter. Last hope, last chance.)

Ginny pours her heart and soul into the diary.

Secrets, fears and failures. Bitterness and envy, love and little-girl humiliations. She speaks of green eyes and messy hair, lightning scars and Quidditch prowess. She scratches anger of red hair and freckles, expectations and disappointments.

And then a wonderful, glorious, marvelous, magical thing happens.

Ginny Weasley's diary answers back.

_My dearest Ginny,_

_Don't let them get you down, you are worth more than all of them put together…_

_Hogwarts is a wonderful place, but the teaching staff do leave something to be desired…_

_Love, don't be sad…_

_I know something that will cheer you up…_

The boy in the diary, Tom, sweet Tom, shows her his past, of tormentors and triumphs, of humiliation and revenge. Of invisibility and escaping shadows. And he uses such affections, and is always so interested in her day

_So tell me about this Harry Potter. Any progress there my dear?_

And he treats her like she wishes her older brothers would, if they weren't too blind to see her.

_You are one of the most intelligent minds to walk this school, have faith, keep trying. I know you can do it. _

He shows her how to practice her magic and how to hold her head high in the crowded corridors.

He whispers secrets and she finds herself falling in love with the honey in his voice and the beauty in his eyes.

And she forgets green and dreams in sepia.

And she forgets her dreams and wakes tired.

And she forgets…


End file.
